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More than three years after her death, an impeccably researched biography of Queen Elizabeth has disclosed some of her most candid thoughts – including, as yesterday’s Daily Mail revealed, the Royal Family’s views on Meghan Markle. Today’s extract from royal historian Hugo Vickers’ book charts her final months and the loss of Prince Philip…
For Prince Philip, the first intimations of mortality came at the end of 2011, just two days before Christmas. That day, he was airlifted from Sandringham to Royal Papworth Hospital, Cambridge, with chest pains. He underwent a successful coronary angioplasty and the replacement of a stent.
He spent four nights in hospital, during which time the Queen took a helicopter flight of 70 miles to see him. Normally the Royal Family were not great hospital visitors, so her visit indicated particular concern that she might lose him.
Presently he was declared out of danger, but the Queen would not let him leave hospital in time for the Boxing Day shoot, telling him firmly: ‘I need you for the Diamond Jubilee.’
He was discharged on December 27. Within five days, he was carriage-driving in the morning and shooting hares in the afternoon.
But his heart scare was a wake-up call. It was a warning that the glorious life-long show could not last for ever.
About 18 months later, in June 2013, Prince Philip attended a Palace garden party and was then taken straight to the London Clinic for an abdominal operation.
The following day, June 7, the Queen sat in on the Today programme. When John Humphrys asked her how the Duke was, she put him in his place. ‘I’ve no idea. He’s only just gone in.’
On his final night, Prince Philip outwitted his nurses to sneak off for a refreshing pint of beer
Queen Elizabeth is believed to have been left disappointed he didn’t say goodbye before dying
‘Well, he was looking well yesterday,’ volunteered Humphrys.
‘That’s because he’s not ill,’ replied the Queen.
The Queen visited the Duke on his 92nd birthday, and uncharacteristically, he received many visits from other members of his family.
Doctors had detected a shadow on his pancreas, and had cut him right across his stomach. The verdict was inoperable pancreatic cancer.
He convalesced for two months at Windsor Castle, having good days and bad days, sometimes just sitting in the sunshine. There was a view that he might not be seen in public again.
But, as ever, the Duke outwitted the pessimists. On July 12 he went up to Wood Farm at Sandringham and resumed royal duties on August 12 by presenting medals to the Royal Society in Edinburgh. He then joined the Queen at Balmoral.
On December 22, 2013, the Queen and Prince Philip were meant to be taking the train to Norfolk for Christmas. All of a sudden, it was announced that they both had heavy colds. Consequently, they travelled by helicopter, something the Queen did not like, especially in winter fog.
It turned out that an employee had arrived for work with a heavy cold and infected the Duke, who had in turn infected the Queen. This was dangerous for nonagenarians, even those with their strong resistance. (They drank milk straight from the cow, and ate unpasteurised cheese.)
On arrival, the Queen walked into Sandringham House, went straight to her room and remained there for the ensuing days, unseen by her guests. She missed the Christmas service for the first time in 30 years.
Although it was never made public, she had pneumonia.
Westminster Abbey – which had to be informed in case she died – panicked sufficiently to make sure they had enough black copes for a funeral.
Prince Charles was worried at the imminent prospect of suddenly finding himself King. It had been said that he longed to take over but, not surprisingly, the reality daunted him.
However, the Queen and Prince Philip both made remarkable recoveries. They were sighted at church at Windsor on February 19, the Queen very ‘beautiful’ and the Duke ‘bounding past, fit as a fiddle’ as I was told by an observer.
Nevertheless, when Buckingham Palace alerted the media in May the following year that an important announcement was to be made, journalists feared the worst and leapt on to planes from places as far away as Australia, thinking a royal death was about to be announced.
Instead, Sir Christopher Geidt, the Queen’s Private Secretary, told the assembled Royal Households that Prince Philip would be retiring from royal duties. On August 2, he undertook his last of some 22,219 public engagements in the forecourt of Buckingham Palace. As Captain General Royal Marines for the past 64 years, he took the salute marking the end of the 1664 Global Challenge, in which servicemen trekked 1,664 miles
It was a wet day. Wearing a raincoat and bowler hat, he strode through the parade without a stick and chatted to the young men and the veterans. When the parade gave him three cheers, he responded with a valedictory wave of his hat.
Upon his final royal engagement, the prince gave the crowd a valedictory wave of his hat
After that final engagement, the Queen let the Duke do exactly as he pleased. He was at his happiest at Wood Farm on the Sandringham estate, and that became his home for the next two and a half years.
He enjoyed his carriage-driving, read voraciously and painted a little. From time to time, the Queen went up by train to Norfolk to stay the weekend. Once again, she gave him a loose rein. In a sense they had separated.
Penny Romsey, the new Countess Mountbatten, often stayed with Philip at Wood Farm. And although Prince Philip came to Windsor for Easter 2019, he did not join the Queen for Easter matins – which was on her 93rd birthday. Communion was brought to him privately.
That year, the Queen’s former private secretary Sir William Heseltine came over from Australia and lunched with the royal couple.
He told the Duke he was surprised to see him. ‘I’m always here in April,’ snapped the Duke.
Heseltine then thanked him for replying to a recent letter.
‘Did I?’ responded Philip.
Inevitably, the Queen worried about him.
Balmoral bored Prince Philip that year. He stayed for just ten days, before returning to Wood Farm. The Queen returned to London in early October.
Around the time that Prince Andrew gave his ill-fated Newsnight interview, there were serious rumours about Prince Philip’s health. The story was that it was ‘just a matter of days’.
Penny Mountbatten was said to be with him most of the time at Wood Farm.
Though none of this was published, Downing Street was alerted and a decision was taken that if the Duke died, the planned general election would be postponed by five days.
It was hard to get to the truth. None of the inner circle seemed to know what was happening. Even the other members of the Royal Family had not been informed of his condition. Everyone prepared for the worst. Sky TV and ITN presenters went round with black ties in their pockets.
But then Prince Philip perked up and went to Broadlands in Kent for the weekend. Someone said he was being public-spirited and making an effort to survive so as not to upset the election.
In December, he was taken to hospital for ‘precautionary’ tests for a ‘pre-existing condition’. He came out in time to join the family for Christmas at Sandringham, looking ‘pinched and rather haunted’, but was unwell over Christmas.
The Queen let Philip do as he wished at Wood Farm once he had concluded his royal duties
It was said that it had been quite hard to keep him alive.
In March 2020, Britain was plunged into the first Covid lockdown. At the time, the Queen was almost 94 and the Duke of Edinburgh was due to turn 98 in June.
On March 18, someone dug up the 1988 quote from Philip in which he had said: ‘In the event that I am reincarnated, I would like to return as a deadly virus to contribute something to solving over-population.’
This fuelled rumours on social media that the news of his death was being withheld. The Queen squashed them by issuing a statement to say he was to join her at Windsor Castle. Then she summoned him back from Wood Farm, Sandringham.
She left Buckingham Palace on March 19, never to spend another night there.
The Queen and the Duke were moved into four rooms in the castle, looked after by a ‘skeleton’ staff, 22 in total. They entered a strict isolation, jokingly nicknamed HMS Bubble, by the Master of the Household, Admiral Tony Johnstone-Burt. Nobody was allowed to enter the Upper Ward of the castle and there were no ladies-in-waiting in attendance.
Philip remained an avid reader, exchanging books with Johnstone-Burt, and expecting a two-page analysis on completion. He had always been suspicious of novels but was drawn to those of Robert Harris, especially Pompeii.
The Queen’s groom Terry Pendry rang the Queen regularly, telling her she had to use her muscles. Occasionally, he brought round her pony, Emma. She would drive out to meet him and ride for 45 minutes.
For her 94th birthday on April 21, seven truckloads of birthday cards arrived at Windsor Castle. The Queen and the Duke also spent Christmas there, while other members of the Royal Family went to Sandringham.
By then, Prince Philip’s short-term memory was deteriorating. He did not want to reach his 100th birthday, particularly disliking the fuss attendant at such events.
On February 17, it looked as though he might get his wish when he was admitted to King Edward VII’s Hospital in London.
The gravity of the situation became apparent when Prince Charles arrived from Highgrove to see him, emerging looking forlorn. Philip was anxious to get back to Windsor Castle for his last days, but on March 1 he was moved to St Bartholomew’s Hospital where he had an operation on his heart. His doctors nearly lost him twice.
He went back to Windsor Castle on March 16, his return considerably delayed by the need to find nurses 100 per cent free of possible Covid infection. He never emerged from the castle again.
However, during those last 24 days at Windsor, he was up and about. One lady-in-waiting, ringing in, was surprised to get him on the telephone.
There were surely elements of tranquillity in those final days in the castle where his mother had been born.
Philip’s nephew, Rainer von Hessen, was delighted to receive from him the foreword to a new book on Wolfsgarten, an 18th Century German hunting lodge. It arrived by post on the morning of April 9, shortly before news came that the Duke had died. In so far as he was able, Prince Philip had been working till the end.
On the last night of his life, he gave his nurses the slip, shuffled along the corridor on his Zimmer frame, helped himself to a beer and drank it in the Oak Room.
The following morning, he got up, had a bath, said he did not feel well and quietly slipped away. By this point, he had lived with pancreatic cancer for nearly eight years – far longer than the usual survival time from diagnosis.
The Queen was not there when he died. There had often been times in earlier days when she had asked the staff to let her know when Philip was leaving, only to be told ‘His Royal Highness left 20 minutes ago’.
She took the line, I was told, that she was ‘absolutely furious that, as so often in life, he left without saying goodbye’.
Had the Queen retreated into Queen Victoria-style mourning, it might have been hard for her, at nearly 95, to pick up the reins again. So she pressed on, and in the days between Philip’s death and the funeral, spoke to the Prime Minister, bade farewell to the retiring Lord Chamberlain in person and received his successor the following day. The day before the funeral, the Governor-General of Australia and Prime Minister of Canada had telephone audiences with her.
Due to Covid rules, the number of mourners at Philip’s funeral was restricted to 30. Nothing would have delighted the Duke more than having such a pared-down farewell.
The most poignant image of the day was of the Queen sitting alone, with her mask on. But her chosen relations were in view. As the Duke’s coffin descended into the Royal Vault, which takes eight minutes, a lone piper played a lament, walking up the North Quire Aisle and into the Dean’s Cloister. The television cameras followed the piper, so the descent of the coffin remained private.
Afterwards, that evening, the ever-thoughtful Queen telephoned Lady Angela Oswald, whose husband Sir Michael had died that very morning.
Her former National Hunt racing adviser, he had been suffering from dementia towards the end of his life, but the Queen had allowed him to think he was still running her horses. She had not made him retire, she told Lady Angela, on account of 50 years of friendship.
The day after Philip’s funeral, the Queen – as she did regularly – watched an informal service of matins Zoomed from Cumberland Lodge in Windsor. It ended with some light music every week. The music chosen that Sunday was You’ll Never Walk Alone.
The Queen had a busy summer. She invited Penny Mountbatten to the Windsor Horse Show, met world leaders at the G7 Summit in Cornwall and attended Trooping the Colour at Windsor Castle.
The next day, she was back on the dais as US President Joe Biden arrived at Windsor. Relaxed and looking well, the Queen was having the time of her life.
But at Balmoral that summer, her glow faded. Picnics were cancelled or curtailed. It was probably then that she was diagnosed with cancer.
Most of her family came to stay with her at different times, just as they normally did. Guests were entertained, and one night there was a dinner party for 18.
The Queen’s bed was sent up from Windsor Castle. On August 20 she was described as ‘the same as ever’, though she told her old friend Prue Penn: ‘I feel as if I’m in the departure lounge.’
In September, the doctor who came to see her every day gave her a powerful boost to enable her to receive the departing and incoming Prime Ministers, Boris Johnson and Liz Truss.
That day, the Queen had her traditional house party staying at Balmoral. David Bertie, a grandson of the Queen Mother’s older sister, recalled her musing on the nation’s new leader. ‘Liz Tough,’ she said.
The Queen stayed up for dinner, then her equerry escorted her to the stairs. ‘I got a broad smile and a thank you before she headed upstairs,’ he recalled.
Her house party left the next day. The Queen did not come down. She died peacefully on the following day, with Princess Anne at her bedside.
Her coffin was laid side by side with Philip’s in the King George VI Memorial Chapel, built off the north quire aisle of St George’s Chapel, Windsor, above those of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth. The final curtain had fallen on a golden age.
Four years before, the Queen had discussed dying with Prue Penn. Both then aged 92, they agreed that death held no fear.
The Queen told Prue she did not think she would live to be 100. On the subject of dying, she said: ‘At least you don’t have to do it as publicly as me.’
© Hugo Vickers, 2026
Adapted from Queen Elizabeth II by Hugo Vickers, to be published on April 9 by Hodder & Stoughton, priced £28. To order a copy for £25.20 (offer valid to April 11; UK p&p free on orders over £25), visit www.mailshop.co.uk/books or call 020 3176 2937.
Permission to wed, sir… it may harm your career if you refuse!
Elizabeth and Philip following the announcement of the couple’s engagement in July 1947
Marrying the penniless Prince Philip – a quarter Danish and a quarter Russian on his father’s side, mainly German on his mother’s – was possibly the one time Princess Elizabeth acted out of character.
Unlike her, he’d had a rootless childhood – though as far as Philip was concerned, it was perfectly happy. His mother had a breakdown and more or less lost touch with him for seven years while his father, Prince Andrew, shut down the family house to lead a shallow life in the South of France as a boulevardier.
When I wrote once that, in 1930 Andrew had surrendered the role of husband and father, Philip’s comment was: ‘Nonsense. I had a three-day holiday with him every summer.’
The Queen told me: ‘Philip never talks about his father.’
A fiercely independent young man emerged from this dysfunctional family. Philip lived on his wits, worked hard and kept his emotions in check.
In 1945, rumours began to fly that he might marry Princess Elizabeth. Clearly he had his doubts. While serving in the Far East, he told his friend Elizabeth Baillieu that he had to go back to England to marry Elizabeth, but didn’t want to.
But all his family were praying he would take the great step. Indeed, Lord Mountbatten was pushing him so much Philip had to warn him off.
Eventually he wrote to his sister in Germany to say that she might think him ‘a mutt’ but he had decided to marry Princess Elizabeth.
In July 1947, the engagement was announced. The King agreed and, as naval regulations demanded, Prince Philip asked the permission of his commanding officer: ‘Request permission to get engaged, Sir, and my fiancee says that if you refuse it won’t be very good for your career!’
He wrote to Queen Elizabeth (later the Queen Mother), saying he was ‘in love, completely and unreservedly’. But she remained cautious, thinking Philip ‘untried’. He never fully won over his mother-in-law. In the 1990s, while entertaining friends at Clarence House, she said: ‘Quite nice my son-in-law… sometimes.’
Inevitably there were tensions. ‘I remember all the arguments,’ recalled Prince Michel de Borbon, a guest at Philip and Elizabeth’s wedding. He did not elaborate.
For a long time, the courtiers were suspicious of Philip. One told him disdainfully: ‘We think you’ll like Windsor Castle when you get to know it.’ Philip replied: ‘Thank you very much. My mother was born there.’
Philip loved an argument, because he felt that was the way to an agreement. He could be abrupt. He was impatient. His wife found herself managing the 1940s equivalent of an ‘angry young man’, frustrated by the domesticity around him. It was not the gentle marriage of her parents.
A childhood friend of the Queen said: ‘She really wanted him, but the first six or seven years were difficult, him being the kind of man he was.’
Another said: ‘He made her suffer.’
With the Queen’s accession in 1952, Philip’s naval career came to an abrupt end.
There were certainly times he found it hard to adjust. Courtier Lady Rachel Davidson once said he was ‘desperately bored with his three womenfolk’, longing for ‘male company’ away from his wife, mother-in-law and sister-in-law.
A retired courtier said that in the 1950s: ‘Philip just got bored with the whole royal business, all those stuffy engagements, all that handshaking. It wasn’t his thing at all.’
There is no question that Philip regretted surrendering his naval career, but he was a pragmatist and throughout his long marriage to the Queen, he provided robust support – becoming, as she famously put it, her ‘strength and stay’.
She came to handle him well. When he wanted something, she joked: ‘I tell Philip he can have it, and then make certain he doesn’t get it.’
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